Space for sale: Astronauts may decide keepsakes' fates

The first generation of astronauts may soon claim final ownership of the stuff they used in space.

On 19 September the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill saying that, except for rocks or other lunar material, all paraphernalia from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions that astronauts took home legally belongs to them. The bill still has to go through the Senate before it becomes law.

Over the years NASA astronauts have held on to pieces of hardware, personal equipment, notes, and other mementos after a mission's end. But in the mid-2000s, NASA started questioning astronauts' ownership of these souvenirs - especially when they tried to sell them.

The issue was highlighted last year when Apollo 13 commander James Lovell, seen above in his official NASA portrait, tried to auction off a checklist he used on the fateful 1970 mission. Lovell had used the list to help guide himself and his crewmates back to Earth after an explosion cancelled their moon landing and threatened their lives.

A bidder at a Dallas space memorabilia auction offered nearly $390,000 for the checklist, which still has the hand-written calculations that Lovell scribbled in it.

Lovell told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he didn't initially think the list had any value. "I happened to see it leftover in my basement and didn't realize what it was. The auction house did the research."

He said he planned to give the proceeds from the auction to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which funds scholarships for college students majoring in science and engineering. Lovell has previously sold autographs to benefit the foundation.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum already has scores of similar items in its collection, such as deodorant, lip balm, and shaving cream that flew on the space shuttles.

Before their mission, the Apollo 11 astronauts had signed hundreds of covers and had friends postmark them on important dates, such as the day of launch or the day of the lunar landing. Even in the pre-eBay world, the astronauts knew those signatures would be valuable - and perhaps of vital use if they didn't make it home. Their families held life insurance in the form of autographs.

"This bill seeks to eliminate any further ambiguity about Apollo-era arteacts that were received by the astronauts," Representative Ralph Hall of Texas, who introduced the bill, said in a statement. "It simply says that astronauts who flew through the end of the Apollo program will be granted full right of ownership of any artefacts received from their missions."